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C
N Venugopalan
Ex-Manager,
Union Bank of India and
Former Director ( GOI
Nominee) State Bank of Travancore
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“Nandanam”
Kesari Junction
N Paravoor
Kerala 683 513
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Phone: 0484 2447994 Cell:9447747994 e-mail:ceeyenvee@gmail.com
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No.160116
16th January,
2016
To: All Bankers / Retired
Bankers.
Dear Colleagues,
RAPE OF BANK EMPLOYEES AND
RETIRED BANKERS
Bank employees in India
had been plundered regularly for past three decades. The rapists include
the people who climbed the ladders from the bottom in banks, the Ministers who
ruled the industry all along and the veteran leaders of the bank
unions/associations.
The bank officer had a
pay of Rs.500.00 when the government officer was getting Rs.450.00. The
higher pay was given in awards for the job risk and extended working hours of
the bank men. Rationalisation of pay was thrust on bankers on account of
the ethnic prejudice of the government officials, against bank officers, after
nationalization. Pillai Committee Recommendations was implemented in 1979
by intercepting the Bipartite Settlements. Initial pay of bank officer
was fixed at Rs.700.00 so as to peg it down to the level of government
officers. Parity of reasoning required keeping bank pay at least at the
level of government officials. The plight is that the bank officer at junior
levels draws a pay and allowance which is lesser by Rs.30,000/- to Rs.40,000/-
p.m. than the government officers now. This is the unique achievement of bank unions for past three
and a half decades.
Bankers are quasi
government employees, they work for six days and beyond a week for nation
building in a hectic mode when the government official works for five days a
week leisurely, do not burden the exchequer as their pay is met out of the
profits they make in banks, they help the government implement the policies,
they light up the people in all walks of life and pave the way to the growth of
all the sectors and yet are given a step-motherly treatment by the government. The key men who wants to project a rosy
picture of their performance plunder the work force that help them perform
their work in a hawkish way. The leaders of organizations who wish to
accomplish their personal ends join hands with the bosses and surrender the
rights of employees, even the statutorily vested ones, after collecting the
subscriptions regularly from members. Trade unionism gets redefined as collective surrendering in place of
collective bargaining to secure and conserve the rights of members. The ministers who take oath in the name of the magnificent
constitution of India, assuring to extend equal treatment to all manner of
people, neglected the bankers all along, after accomplishing their ends with
the help of the bankers.
Since pension to the
retired are computed on the basis of pay of employees on rolls and bank pay has
fallen much below than what it ought to be, retired bankers are very much
pushed to the walls and into the netherworld with a meager pittance accruing to
them that defeats the intended purpose of pension. Employees on rolls
appear to be on a false notion that if pension is increased, they will be
affected. Pension is paid out of specific fund created for the purpose
and will not affect the profits of banks. The government also does not have to
make budgetary allocation for paying pension. Pension Funds of all
banks are abounding with resources and can contain four times the present
pension paid to the retired. Employees recruited after 01.04.2010 need not be
serviced out of pension funds as they are covered by PFRDA Scheme.
Besides, mortality of pensioners is also reducing pension liability of
banks. Though bank pension was agreed to be on the lines of Central Civil
Pension and regulation 56 specifically pinpoints that in case of doubt, in the
matter of applicability of the regulations, regard may be had to corresponding
provisions of Central Civil Service Rules (1971), the basic pension in banks
has never been revised with any of the Bipartite Settlements while
implementation of each Pay Commission Report automatically results in hike of
the pension to government officers. Precedence shows that in terms of
regulation 35, basic pension and additional pension of employees who retired
after 1st January, 1986 but before 31st October,
1987 was updated as per a formula given in Appendix-1 to the Pension Scheme.
As Pension Funds of banks
are built up with the amounts that were previously payable by banks into CPF
pursuant to Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act,1952,
Pension Funds constitute the deferred statutory wages of the employees.
It is not banks’ money and is the money of the employees which banks hold in
trust. Non-payment of updated pension is in derogation of statutory
pension regulations and deprivation of the already sanctioned rights.
Organisations shall realize the crude fact that pension updation is not a fresh
demand, but enforcement of a subordinate legislation for release of the
sanctions of the Parliament. Section 10 (7) of the Banking
Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970/1980 permits
Boards of a corresponding new bank ( Nationalised banks) to declare a dividend
and to retain surplus profits as reserves in its books only after paying /
providing adequately to Pension Funds. Given that the banks are regularly
declaring dividends and retaining surplus profits as reserves, and the dividend
is applied by the government to part finance the salary and pension bills of
the government employees and of the statesmen, bank employees are looted
regularly in the past. Peter got robbed regularly for paying to Paul. If
trade unions fail to stop such exploitation, they are of no use. While
matters like foreign investment, capital infusion, etc. assume place in the
charter of demands, why should the organizations shy out in ensuring proper
compensation for labour in the industry and in ensuring that the sanctioned
benefits in terms of the settlements are given to the members and former
members who built up the organizations and a resilient banking system in the
country. Unfortunately, the bank men are duped by the leaders
also whose responsibility it is to safeguard the rights of the members.
The leaders appear as loyal to the masters who help them collect the
subscriptions and levies regularly and secure to them huge funds through
check-off. The great leader who categorically that the 10th Bipartite
Settlement will not be signed unless and until the retiree issues are settled
prior to it took a u-turn and subscribed his signature to the Settlement
and Record Note.
History tells us that
when pension option was denied to majority of employees, organizations were
mute on it. Even as government gave a direction to IBA on 24.12.1997 vide
F No.4/8/4/95-IR (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_UI4pgwLPCjWFF4VUQyTTRPTXc/view?usp=sharing ) to scrap the clause for forfeiture of past
service from the regulation 22 (4) (b) and to give effect to it (which process
involved extending a fresh option for pension), organizations did not know that
the option had to be given at that time. When the amendment was
circulated by banks as late as in 2002 after keeping it in camera clandestinely
for years, that too without extending an option, organizations were in a
sleeping mode and told members that fresh option is not viable in banks. After
framing and implementation of the Joint Notes in 2010, the Pension Funds of
banks showed an unprecedented growth. To cite an instance, the Pension Fund of Union
Bank of India had a growth of Rs.1,943.34 Crores during 2014-15 and the
benefits paid was only Rs.451.91 Cores. The payment was a meager
23.25 percent and shows the capacity to pay four times the present pension to
all its retirees. Through the
Joint Notes, unlawful contribution totaling Rs.247.27 Crores was
collected from employees on rolls ( Rs. 71.08 Crores) and retired employees
(Rs. 176.19 Crores). After allowing a sum of Rs.500 Crores for
refunding the unlawful contribution and interest, there is a residual growth of
Rs.5,114.66 Crores during the past five years. This sum can foot arrears
of pension from the date of retirement of employees to the date 26.11.2009
to the tune of Rs.1.67 Crores per capita to its 3,106 retired employees taken
into the ambit of pension through the Joint Note. The arrears payable per
capita could only be in the range of Rs.20.00 lakhs on the higher side and
there is huge sums left in Pension Fund even on paying the arrears. The
fund can be utilized only for payment of pension / family pension and cannot be
put to any other use. The case with other public sector banks is also not different and
all of them can pay two to three times the present pension to all its
employees.
Had the second option
been given at the appropriate time, the Pension Funds of all banks should
have doubled or tripled by now. It was sheer executive vandalism and stupendous
stupidity of an astounding nature that prevented banks from extending option to
employees earlier. Organisations that remained inert on the issue on an
apprehension that fresh option was not viable and worked on it only consequent
on pressure exerted by me for six long years should apologize to the members
for the harm they did to them. Though they acted on pressure calibrated
by me for years together, they were there to take the credit of second option
and to collect the levy and contributions from the beneficiaries.
All conclusions in the
Joint Note, except extending a fresh option Joint Notes contains conclusion which
are prejudicial to what is done earlier under the relative regulations. The
conclusion for giving fresh option was a second sanction of the sanction dated
24.12.1997 of the Government. The conclusion to raise the contribution from
employees and retired employees prejudice regulations 2 (j) which defines
contribution to Pension Fund as any sum paid by the bank to Pension Fund
on behalf of the employee, regulation 5 (3) that stipulates that the bank shall
be a contributor to the Fund and shall ensure placement of enough sums in the
Fund to enable the trustees to make due payment of the benefits and regulation
11 which stipulates making of additional contribution every year on the basis
of an Actuarial valuation of the Fund. The conclusion to pay pension to
all the retired alike from 27.11.2009 irrespective of the date of retirement is
in derogation of regulation of regulation 52 (1) which stipulates that pension
shall become payable from the date following the date on which an employee
retires. The Board of Banks has, under section19 (1) and (4) of the
Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970/1980
prohibition from making a regulation which prejudice the validity of what
is done earlier under a regulation. Besides, under section19 (4) of the
Act, any amendment to a regulation has to be placed in the Houses of the
Parliament for 30 days as soon as it is made for the nod of both the
Houses. The covenants of the Joint Notes are such that they cannot be
laid in the Parliament and the due procedure for amendment of the Pension
Regulations is not yet done albeit lapse of five full years though it had to be
placed in the Houses as soon as the amendments are made, say within some three
to four months. The Joint Note dated 27.04.2010 has thus no force of law
and got obliterated by itself. The relative regulations remain the
same. It is on the basis of the
obliterated Joint Notes that banks unlawfully collected the contribution from
employees and retired employees and denied pension to the retired from their
date of retirement to 27.11.2009. The requirement in law spelt out as conclusion No.10
of the Joint Notes, which is breached by banks. Limpidly, the Joint
Notes has no force of law.
The non-compliance with
the due procedure in law is a flagrant breach of the settlement which, any or
all of the signatory organizations can singly or jointly take up with the Chief
Labour Commissioner (Central ), demanding to set aside the settlement and
also to seek payment of the pension from the date of retirement to
26.11.2009 in case of the retired and refund of the unlawful contribution
raised to the Pension Fund and interest on it from employees on rolls and the
retired. Since the contribution has been earning interest on pension fund
investments, banks run no loss on account of this. One single
strike notice on the issue can settle the entire gamut of issues and the Labour
Department / Government will be left with no answer. It
is my desire that the leaders of the organization shall not forget the role
played by the retired in nurturing the organisations / banks and strive to do
justice to them without driving them into the corridors of Courts in the
evening of their lives in quest of justice in a hapless state.
The key men of banks
bother least when the Kingfisher swoops down and fly away with several crores
from banks in a single attempt. Banks join together and lend at reduced
rates to NBFCs albeit the fact that Rs.10,000 Crores lent to such an NBFC for
one percent less pinches the system with Rs. 100 Cores a year. Their only
concern is that the people who work for them are put to misery and they are
keen to plunder them. While filling their bellies to the tip of their
nose, the Executives fail to see the hapless state of the work force and bully
them with hard toil and inadequate compensation. In independent
India, IBA carved out a territory of its own and the darkest one where it
operates a parallel regime in derogation of the laws of the land created by the
Parliament of India. Public Sector Banks are meant for the persons
sitting on top, the elite business men who frequents to swindle banks, the
statesmen who wants to manipulate them and for the leaders who built up their
empire under the auspices of parties.
One great leader told me
some nine years back that whatever I was getting owes to the
unions. I was not getting pension at that time which I owed
to the union. Experience tells me that I had to fight against this
leader too in my solo battle for a decade to get the meager pension which I am
getting now. What the leader said was rightly applicable to him. He
was getting the salary and allowances not for working for his bank, but for
doing the union activity alone. When the Joint Note giving a fresh option
came, its paternity went to the leaders. Their contribution was the
biggest surrender of the statutorily vested rights. They agreed that pension
payable from the date of retirement vide regulation 52 (1) shall be paid from
27.11.2009 only and the establishment expenditure which was payable by the bank
vide regulation 2 (j), 5(3) and 11 shall be passed on to employees and retired
employees through the contribution to Pension Fund. It is
strange that IBA and bank unions agreed on behalf of the retired employees sans
their mandate for the forfeiture of their pension from the date of retirement
and for the contribution, which again was unlawful. A
gap between the date of retirement and date of commencement is the unique
innovation of the great bankers as such a phenomena cannot be seen anywhere in
the universe.
If there is any trade
unions worth its name and is earnest in the performance of its role, what it
should do forthwith is to challenge the Joint Note either with the IBA or
Government or in a court of law on the ground that its conclusion No.10
relating to the amendment of the regulation is breached. This will
unsettle the Joint Note and ensure payment of pension to the retired from the
date of retirement to 26.11.2009 and refund of the unlawful collection to
Pension Fund raised from employees and the retired together with
interest. This
is the easiest way of redeeming the statutorily vested rights of the employees
/ retired employees. The only thing needed is some grey matter in the
skull and courage to enforce the settlements. If settlements are breached, it is adequate
ground for giving a strike call. There is no point is signing settlements if
they are not enforced in full. Non-payment of up dated pension stipulated under
regulation 56 of the subordinate legislation is akin to non-payment of the
salary and allowances fixed in the settlement. If unions feel any
helplessness, it is appropriate that they abandon their banners and flags in
the Arabian Sea or Bay of Bengal. The leaders shall take cue from the Munnar
Plantations where they were abandoned by the women workers and act swiftly to
regain lost grounds as otherwise, they may get jettisoned in course of time.
A
specimen notice on the issues for submission by organizations, with such modifications
as deemed fit, to CLC (C) , IBA. Government etc. is appended for use by
interested trade unions in their own interest.
Thanks and Regards.
Yours sincerely,
C N VENUGOPALAN
Regards, E.R.Iyer
